City Hall steps up efforts to win Council support for housing plan

Negotiations between the de Blasio administration and the City Council over the mayor's controversial housing plans are intensifying, with both sides hoping to reach a deal by the end of next week.

Following two lengthy public hearings last month, the Council's Democratic caucus has held two private meetings to air concerns. Meanwhile, administration officials have been talking to members one-on-one about their individual issues and officials from both sides of City Hall have also been meeting to map out possible solutions, multiple sources told POLITICO New York.

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Several council members who would speak only on background because of the ongoing negotiations said talks have accelerated in the past few weeks. It's possible the Council will vote on the entire package at its March 22 meeting.

The formal land use process in the city requires that these proposals, formally known as Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and Zoning for Quality and Affordability, be settled by the beginning of April. During a visit to a senior center in Park Slope on Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the Council would vote on the two plans some time this month.

"Tell your family. Tell your friends. People need to speak up for affordable housing for seniors, because this vote will happen in this month, the month of March. It will happen and it will decide so much of the future," he said.

One member described "the added pressure" to reach a deal soon.

"The pressure at this point is on the administration to make changes in order to have this passed as soon as they want it," the member said. "We are just hoping to finish things up soon."

The top issue that has emerged from the meetings is the level of affordable housing required from Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, known as MIH for short. Currently it mandates developers who build in rezoned areas of the city pick from one of three options for affordable housing: 25 percent of their units rented to those making, on average, 60 percent of the Area Median Income, 30 percent at 80 percent of the AMI or 30 percent at 120 percent. City subsides would not be available for that third option.

The philosophy is that if the city grants builders the benefit of a rezoning, which is essentially the permission to create more lucrative rental housing than would otherwise be allowed, those developers must create more below-market-rate housing to help ease the city's shortage of affordable units.

The Council has discussed the possibility of a fourth option that would require some of the apartments built in a rezoned area to be rented to those earning 40 percent of the AMI, one member said.

In New York City and surrounding counties, the AMI is $77,688 for a family of three.

The Council also has considered demanding that if builders choose the option for 120 percent of the AMI, they also would be required to provide cheaper apartments in the same development, the member said.

Another possibility that has been floated is mandating that in any given development built through a rezoning, some units would have to be reserved for tenants earning below the targeted AMI, but could be balanced out by renting others to those who make more.

"I think there's a concern about locking in more or deeper affordability thresholds. That's a biggie," a different member said.

"There is real pressure right now to get this done as soon as possible, but what we need is a bill that ensures an affordability plan for all New Yorkers in different neighborhoods. There are low-income, immigrant working families and we need to get to a place where the plan is going to protect them," another member said.

During the meetings, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has been tallying up the members' varied concerns on the two proposals, while making it clear she wants them to pass, several members said.

Asked to characterize her approach, one member replied, "Find a way to make it work."

During the first closed-door Council meeting, the land use director, Raju Mann, gave a power-point presentation on the plans and highlighted the major concerns that had arisen thus far, with affordability levels topping the list.

He and Mark-Viverito then listened as members, one by one, expressed their individual problems with the plans. (Members said Mann has painstakingly attended to every concern they have presented.)

They have then discussed these issues with the administration. Present at those meetings on behalf of the Council are Mark-Viverito, Mann, chief of staff Ramon Martinez and Councilman Donovan Richards, who chairs the zoning subcommittee.

While concerns about MIH can be easily translated in these meetings, the Council's issues with Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) are far more varied and reflect the opinions raised by community boards and borough presidents last year, when these plans were largely rejected in non-binding votes throughout the city.

Some members in the outer boroughs are worried about changes to parking requirements. Manhattan representatives have expressed concerns about additional height allowances and changes to the so-called sliver law, which prevents narrow buildings from being built taller than their neighboring ones. Other members are troubled by the additional height senior residences would be granted.

One source privy to these conversations said the administration is trying to group these concerns into manageable lists, but that there may be exceptions made to the proposals in order to get a majority of the 51 Council members on board.

"This is an ambitious and extraordinarily complicated plan," one member said. "To create an overall plan that you're going to be able to get consensus on is not impossible, but it's a real slog and what I think is happening now with the Council is we are taking the temperature of members on the most important changes that need to happen to get broad support when this comes up for a vote."

A spokesman for de Blasio, Austin Finan, said the two sides "are having productive conversations and look forward to delivering the reforms our city needs."